


make another step (and fall in)

by secretsarenotforfree



Series: stupid cupid, stop hitting on me [4]
Category: Castle (TV 2009)
Genre: Castle is Extra, Christmas fic, Cuddling, F/M, Fluff With One (1) Smut Flavoring, Kate is Adorable and In Love, One Couch, TA!AU Verse, and Really Deserves This Okay, we love him for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28312128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsarenotforfree/pseuds/secretsarenotforfree
Summary: She’s a little awestruck and that doesn’t happen to her every often.(Or it didn’t used to. Before Castle.)
Relationships: Kate Beckett/Richard Castle
Series: stupid cupid, stop hitting on me [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034472
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	make another step (and fall in)

**Author's Note:**

> yeah so no one asked but kate spent the morning/early afternoon with her parents and then headed over. i didn't have a place to put this in the fic but wanted y'all to know. also the otprecinct gets together on New Years to celebrate and not Christmas but i can tell you gifts were absolutely exchanged...just no room for them in this fic sglsg.
> 
> this is a future!fic set in the current TA auniverse because those two are stuck in a mess but also i cannot resist christmas fluff because thats the good SHIT. a small gift for my lovely christmas baby, anca, on her birthday, and a bigger gift for the Castle GC because i adore you alll so much.
> 
> ignore any typos it's....four thirty am and i'm wiped :3 
> 
> title from 'maybe' by somo which is LOOSELY a holiday song, i don't wanna hear it

“The _hell_ were you thinking?”

(Now just taken at face value like that, it’s easy to assume that sentence is full of at least an irate inflection. Definitely some annoyance, perhaps anger. There is no such suggestion that they would be the last words breathed before the greeting of a very warm and affectionate kiss.

None at all.)

Castle hums into Kate’s mouth, willingly letting his back drift down the couch, her steadily advancing more than welcomed. The gasless fireplace flickers across from them, the only warm light other than the tree, staggering and impeccably decorated by a noticeably absent Martha. Said eccentric icon was at some sort of gathering some of her fellow professors had thrown, a Christmas night dinner that left the place blessedly empty. 

All that space, one Castle, one Kate. The best kind of noel, as far as either of them seem to be inclined to think.

“So, you don’t like it?” The writer adjusts his head against the pillow separating his neck from the arm of the chair and drags his thumb up the line of her chin. Cups her dark hair to her head, rubs his nose along hers.

“You’re the worst.” Kate’s hands are wrapped tight in the comfy charcoal and black flannel keeping him from her, her legs a sloppy in their lay against and in between his. Easy comfortability when she’s got him close to her as she can, like she’ll be told to let go. Like she never wants him to. “I hate you.” She kisses him again, a little bit of tongue and a lot of emotion. Castle’s other hand makes no effort to stop its gentle grazing on the golden skin of her thighs. Only continues its up and downwards motion of long strokes to the crescent curve of gently kicking ankle and back to her waist. 

He’s had those needy, possessive hands on her since the moment he answered the door, and she had the balls to stand there with a fresh trim of that dumbly devastating haircut, a wrapped present, and a _sweater dress_. A turtlenecked, deep crimson red thing thats hem slouched and danced on her slim hips and filled his eyes with a lot more than Christmas cheer.

(Sweeping up his girlfriend in the doorway of his home to kiss her wasn’t close to being old yet. He didn’t think it ever would. Nothing compared to that glowing rush when he opened his eyes after their kiss to find her eyes still closed and a smile on her face while she tugs gently on his ears and whispers “ _Merry Christmas, Castle_ ” so gently he feels it down to his toes.)

Hot chocolate still lurks on Castle’s soft, attentive lips when Kate finally sighs and pulls back. Nestles her chin in her hands and ignores the slight discomfort of the thin chain wrapped around her fingers. Looks up at him through dramatic holiday eyeliner he’d smudged earlier while chasing her playfully around the kitchen and dropped her head to the side. “Castle, what kind of twenty one year old owns _Tiffany’s_. No matter how beautiful it is.” _No matter if you're the one giving it and I really want to accept._

Because it _was_ beautiful. She'd expected as much, laying eyes on that patented near robins egg blue, but still. It was one of the most stunning things Kate had ever seen, a dark, filigree light silver that would land to, she estimated, the taper of her breasts. A small pendant, stylized almost as a ring, a crescent curve of small gemstones gracing the inside. Kate didn’t know a lot about jewelry, but she knew a diamond when she saw one. 

She’s a little awestruck and that doesn’t happen to her every often.

(Or it _didn’t_ used to. Before Castle.)

“It made me think about you.” He studies her face with an unfathomable look in his dark pupils, ringed with that mysterious blue, and adjusts her into him once more. A little closer, a little tenderer. “My Diana of the hunt. Or Artemis, without the whole virgin thing. That last thing’s a dealbreaker.” Castle feigns seriousness and earns a glare for his troubles. 

Kate loosens her grip on the fabric separating her palms from the broad barrel chest she’d fallen asleep on, by now, too many times to count. She unwinds it from her palms, stares at the tiny, intricately fitted solid stars. The pendant itself would be dwarfed if pressed against the pad of Castle’s thumb, and she feels small all over again. Small, maybe, but. Important. She felt that, even when they weren’t explicitly saying it, now. 

It was nicer than she could’ve imagined.

_Nice_ or not though, she can’t believe he pulled something like this. And at the same time wonders why she expected less, because Kate’s lists could be novels by now and she gave up on organizing them and let them just mix up in her heart instead. Layer and deepen and welcome this love that she had not expected to find and now refused to picture life without. 

“Okay. _Okay._ ” Kate scrambles a bit up, her legs shifting round rather than near between his hips. Castle seems more than content to tilt his chin up to keep her in his sights, shift the casual ownership of his touch to fingertips grazing the edges of dark lacy panties he’d taken off with his teeth before they’d gotten to the _other_ , though no less festive, unwrapping.

She gathers the glimmer of slippery silver into her palms and shoots a gaze at him. “You swear that you still love the present I got for you.”

And okay, so maybe she hadn’t gone too wild or too personal. A tiny stack of notecards with **Do __________ to Kate, 1 Time Only Free Pass** written on them and a special dirty holiday edition of rip off MadLibs she found online that she thought he would kick out of. Realistically, Kate knew she had no cause for concern that he hadn’t enjoyed them - he’d gone and returned with a pen so fast Kate felt like she’d barely had time to blink before they’d even _made it_ to the second gift. (For all his troubles she’d absolutely destroyed any semblance of neat handsomeness in that gorgeous, thick hair, and now she knew exactly how deliciously cold the marble of his kitchen island felt against the bared small of her back with her legs draped around his shoulders) - But she wanted to hear. Just because.

A note of seriousness enters Castle’s so mirthful eyes, grip tightening. “If you take it back I swear I’ll never believe in Santa again, Beckett. Don’t you dare.” Her spine relaxes just the slightest bit, like his voice cutting whatever small string of tension was there.

“Then...then okay.” She decides.

“Okay?” Castle’s eyes sparkle. If he knows anything about Kate by now, she’s deeply stubborn and hates receiving anything but orgasms. Even that last bit requires some inventive coaxing if she’s too wired to realize how much she really needs one. Getting her something this nice was a gamble, because she could always politely refuse it into oblivion..

Kate rolls her eyes at him, even though she knows whatever impact it might’ve had is fastened by the flattered blush on her cheeks. She has no idea just how much Castle feels like a kid on Christmas day at every new sighting of it. “Yes, okay. Shut up. Help put it on me.”

He does, but because he’s _Castle_ and he’s just _like this,_ he pulls one of his more talented moves and spins her below him so fast the breath whooshes from her lungs. Drinks in her light laughter in the wake of it with a charming smile just this side of bashful when he brackets himself on strong biceps to use those big, big hands to do the tiny clasp. Kate arches her neck a little bit to help him, and it’s all situated in just under a couple of minutes. The chain drapes a bit misshapen against the thick fabric of her dress, but it suits her. It fits, too perfectly, like the way she did in his life and his heart and the dozens of things Castle hadn’t known was missing her until she was there.

“It’s beautiful, Castle. I love it.” Kate has a particular affinity for dragging him down for a kiss with arms draped around his neck, and she gives in to it now. Murmurs into his mouth about how dumb he is, and he shouldn’t do it again but also if he wants to they can negotiate and he should know exactly how to do that by now. 

He’s too deep in that cherry scent, so strong this close to her that the holiday scented candles Martha insisted he light to set the mood can’t even attempt to overpower it, that he doesn’t realize what she’s done. Only processes the faux fur tickling the tips of his ears when her husky, mischievous chuckle escapes from her lungs and falls into his own. Kate flops the puffy ball on the Santa hat back from Castle’s face and smiles so bright it’s as if he’s somehow convinced the winter sun to be happy holed up in his apartment with him.

“And me?” He checks, one warm breath away from more holiday kisses from his girlfriend.

“And you. Ass." Kate adds for good measure, the normally crude word deceptively affectionate in her voice. " _Merry Christmas._ ”

“Merry Christmas.” Castle agrees and proceeds to try and find out just how merry and bright it could be.

**Author's Note:**

> i blame the 'diana of the hunt' moment entirely on my recent binge of a discovery of witches, let me live pls i beg you


End file.
